[iwangulenko]

Programmer and owner of a technical recruitment agency here. I forked and rewrote the thing to make it more appealing to recruiters: https://gist.github.com/iwangu/b0d8b8e140afdd4e30bb7e401babc... I mainly removed things that sound patronising to me.

I think many HR people will just ignore you if you e-mail what OP posted. Once, I wrote a blogpost why programmers don't get jobs due to random factors ("Why software engineers don’t get jobs: Four horror stories" https://goo.gl/v4PUWV), but being patronising and "explaining programming to HR" is one of the things where you just shoot yourself in the foot by being too demanding too early in the process. You can be demanding ONLY AFTER they told you that they want to hire you, but not before.

A tip for e-mailing HR and business e-mails in general: Try to never signal that you will be hard to work with. Always be kind and even a little bit submissive. Don't try to teach people something, don't quote authors and don't do footnotes. Imagine the person will take a maximum of 3 seconds per paragraph and 10 seconds in total to read your e-mail. There is a chance the reader is listening to an audiobook or is watching Youtube while answering e-mails in a cubicle. If you need to discuss something critical, invite the person for a phone call. Salary, negotiating or deviating from a standard process (like here) should be discussed in person/in a call.

Hope that helps to get some insight from "the other side".

[bitL]

I think your approach would work if there was a shortage of jobs; there is exactly opposite situation right now and HR should adapt or they would end up with a very narrow dissection of what is available. You are often asking accomplished individuals to waste their time on badly compensated job proposals, just because it makes your life easier. No wonder so many programmers think recruiters in this industry are a joke and try to actively avoid them.

[s3nnyy]

I agree totally with what you said, but you're confusing macro- and micro-economics here. On a macro-level it is true, HR people should be treating programmers like gods at all times, but on a micro-level, the HR person sitting in the cubicle doesn't care about one programmer more or less.

There might be ten other CVs of "okay'ish" engineers in HR's inbox and your interview will end by never hearing back the firm. Or if, despite being cocky, you get an offer there might be a note somewhere next to your CV on the CEO's desk saying "easy-to-work-with level: Only 50% score" which leads to 10k less for you in salary. As an applicant, you want to "manipulate" the employer to give you the best possible offer and why shouldn't you be friendly and a bit submissive to achieve your goal?

[hysan]

There's a distinction to be made here about the level of the position being discussed and the particular skillset. What you're saying makes more sense on the junior to mid-level dev positions or for more common skillsets. However, this is the Hacker News audience and you're clearly replying to someone who has already narrowed it down to senior dev positions. Given that context, I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment. If you're hiring for the best, then it's up to HR to respect their time. Otherwise you are just perpetuating the belief that recruiters add no value to either side of the equation.

[s3nnyy]

You're right. The more senior the role, the more leeway there is for the candidate to tailor the process, but signaling arrogance is just bad.

[mywittyname]

I see that you're receiving a bit of flak (which, given the audience, isn't unsurprising). But I wanted to let you know that I found this comment pretty insightful.

[s3nnyy]

Happy to help. When I was a full-time programmer I also thought writing ten paragraph e-mails with footnotes is smart but turns out it isn't (I learned this the hard way).

[dahart]

> I think your approach would work if there was a shortage of jobs

There is always a shortage of good jobs. You can fight the process all you want, if any job at all will do, and you don't care how long it takes to get it.

> You are often asking accomplished individuals to waste their time on badly compensated job proposals

What do you mean by badly compensated?

Why would you assume someone else knows anything about your accomplishment and credentials and trusts the skills you list on your resume before you've demonstrated anything?

Also, if you're good, then why does a low bar for entry scare or offend you? A screen for basic aptitude is narrowing the field and removing people from competition who can talk well but don't have programming experience. That seems like an advantage for anyone who can pass the easy tests.

[bitL]

Alright, imagine you worked for top engineering company, have github full of bleeding edge stuff anyone can observe, wrote books, have patents under your belt, do public speaking, teaching at universities etc. and some HR person comes in and wants you to do trivial HackerRank stuff. She basically interrupted you from working on something benefiting humanity just because she was lazy to check your CV and ignorant of the industry. Then you see the same company awarding their good jobs to friends of higher ups and all they have left are generic jobs they need to fill that would end up with all the work, complaining "where have all the good programmers gone?". And then you read on HN post like this and wonder why there is so much resistance to acknowledge one's qualification from what they provided in their CV. Imagine the same doing in other areas of industry - we don't care you won these multi-million law cases in the past, all we care is how the history of US North-East affected common law between years 1870-1893.

[dahart]

FWIW, I have a patent and do public speaking, recently sold a startup, and I gladly take the coding quizzes for all my interviews.

They are fun, and they give me a chance to shine. The coding quizzes actually saved me once when I did really badly in another part of the interview. That company hired me, and gave me what others there thought was the good job.

I also administer coding quizzes to people I hire, and I find them a small but useful part of the larger interview process. I'm giving an assembly language coding quiz to someone later today.

> She basically interrupted you from working on something benefiting humanity

That seems a little hyperbolic. Do you want the job? You have to spend time interviewing. Simple as that. Don't do the quizzes if you don't want the job.

> Then you see the same company awarding their good jobs to friends of higher ups

Most companies try to promote from within, and many people think that's a good thing. The alternative is you hire unknowns from outside the company over people who've been there putting in the time and know the system.

> just because she was lazy to check your CV and ignorant of the industry

It's both presumptuous and pessimistic, and also likely wrong, to assume that a coding quiz implies any laziness on anyone's part.

> Imagine the same doing in other areas of industry

Other jobs have it much worse, you have to get bureaucratic certifications for a lot of jobs that are a lot less fun than Hackerrank, and take months and months. Or you could be a lawyer or doctor, and you have to raise money and bring in clients in order to get the good jobs.

What jobs are you thinking of that have it so much better than programmers?

[bitL]

It was about accomplished people getting the same treatment as newbies or wannabes that have no clue what they are doing. You don't see it in other industries. E.g. I wrote this new language/library everybody uses, but I am forced to solve some crappy puzzles I probably was solving when I was 14 and match the current mood/skills/tunnel vision of the interviewer. As a consequence, I rather start my own company and charge you much more for the same service you'd get if you employed me with a bit of a good will on your part, or by simply reading my CV and clicking on the links there.

[dahart]

You do know there are a lot of "accomplished" people according to their own CV who can't actually code their way out of a paper bag, right?

The more senior someone gets, the more expensive. It's worth the company's time to screen for basic aptitude, especially when someone claims greater expertise.

> As a consequence, I rather start my own company

By all means, you should definitely do that and stop worrying about job interviews!

> if you employed me with a bit of a good will on your part

Good will is something you earn. And you earn it by doing things the company needs without complaining. For starters, they need to be able to compare candidates against each other when hiring. Fighting that, and asking the company to evaluate something you've done that doesn't allow comparing you against other people, isn't something that will benefit the company.

> or by simply reading my CV and clicking on the links there.

You're expecting people to spend time reading your projects before they screen you? If you got the call, it's probably because someone read your CV. That's all you can expect at this stage. If you want them to click the links and read the rest, then you take 30 minutes to do the phone screen, and another 30 to do the coding quiz. Then you get to have a conversation about your projects.

If they never ask you about your projects, then yeah, maybe you shouldn't work there. The coding quiz is only one small part of a many-part process.

[Caveman_Coder]

> "...working on something benefiting humanity..."

I think you forgot to add the "/s" to this statement.

[bitL]

Maybe you are idealistic and work for non-profit dealing with human trafficking in your spare time and have to cut it to take a silly HackerRank test?

[mywittyname]

Why are you interviewing if you're working your dream non-profit job?

[Caveman_Coder]

More likely it is watching Netflix and reading HN...let's not pretend we're all out there saving the world and volunteering our free time for selfless causes...

[crdoconnor]

>There is always a shortage of good jobs.

If their hiring process involves jumping through hoops before being granted permission to interview and if the tasks assigned to you bear almost no relationship to the job at hand, the chances of the job actually being good are low.

Employers that do this kind of thing typically have an entitlement complex and not the smartest. People with an entitlement complex who are not very clever are bad to work for.

>Why would you assume someone else knows anything about your accomplishment and credentials and trusts the skills you list on your resume before you've demonstrated anything?

In my case because I have a bunch of open source available that they can just read.

If a company expects me to complete a 1 hour badly thought through exercise that is at best barely related to the job before they grant me permission to talk to them, just exactly how well do you think they'll treat me once I'm actually hired?

[dahart]

I'd love to hear examples of how to do it right, without taking all my time. I'm genuinely interested in how to hire people without wasting their time or mine. I'd love to screen people with a day of pair programming or a 2 week paid internship, or whatever other good ideas are floating around. I can't.

You have just dismissed most tech companies. All the large ones (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) give coding puzzles as part of their interview process.

If you don't want to work for one of those companies, that's absolutely your choice, but you'd be wrong to say they have an entitlement complex or aren't the smartest.

> In my case because I have a bunch of open source available that they can just read.

I do read people's OS projects, but I simply can't do that for every candidate before I screen them, I don't have enough time. If the coding tests are easy, and you want me to see your open source project, then just ace the coding test and move on.

If you don't want the job, then don't do the coding test. It is your choice.

[crdoconnor]

In the past I've given programming tasks that mimic real life work as closely as possible and fit them into a reasonable time frame - for example, 1 hour of pairing/programming during an arranged face to face interview. If the test is well designed, touches on a number of areas and self contained, I think this was sufficient for me to assess their skills.

"Mimic real life" means no puzzles (unless I've literally experienced them in real life), no binary tree reversals and no big O notation questions.

>You have just dismissed most tech companies. All the large ones (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) give coding puzzles as part of their interview process.

I think that type of thinking leads to embarrassments like this:

https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

I think he experienced exactly the same problem the OP is talking about and in this case it's not him who was dumb, it was Google.

I wouldn't rule out any of those companies but I think I'd rule out joining through the standard interview process - I'd look for specific people who looked to be doing exciting work on specific teams and try to befriend them.

>you'd be wrong to say they have an entitlement complex or aren't the smartest.

I think it would depend upon the team. I think they're not all geniuses, and they do have a tendency to drink their own kool aid. For sure some teams are great though.

[dahart]

> 1 hour of pairing/programming during an arranged face to face interview. If the test is well designed, touches on a number of areas and self contained, I think this was sufficient for me to assess their skills.

Sounds great. I've done this too, but I've never done it before screening candidates. I don't have enough time to screen candidates by programming with them.

> "Mimic real life" means no puzzles (unless I've literally experienced them in real life), no binary tree reversals and no big O notation questions.

Understood. My goal with my coding quizzes and knowledge questions is not to mimic real life. It's to asses the boundaries of the candidate's education and experience, without regard to skill.

> I think that type of thinking leads to embarrassments like this

There always have been and always will be false negatives, even with lengthy face-to-face interviews, even with pair programming, and even with paid internships.

One high profile false negative anecdote, while unfortunate, doesn't imply there's a widespread or unexpected problem. Applying for jobs always comes with a risk of not getting the job for a wide variety of factors that are outside the candidate's control. If it's a job you really want, all you can do is try hard.

I love homebrew, and I'm sure @mxcl is a fabulous coder, but the tweet you shared does make it sound like he expected to get the job without an interview, and might have come across that way, or might have not prepared at all.

[bitL]

Getting to Google is more difficult than getting to Harvard. They built their process that way risking rejecting great candidates in order to minimize false positives, bad hires, according to their definition of bad hire. So the Homebrew author could have expected it, it happens all the time. I object to using the same criteria throughout the industry on most jobs these days though, instead of only on top-end ones. I have nothing against top companies having top interviews, they are usually fun if you are good.

[bitL]

> All the large ones (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) give coding puzzles as part of their interview process.

They are considered the best and give above average compensation. Is your company considered the best, properly paying top talent, to employ the same schema? Those tests were done to distill the top end performers with the accepted risk of huge number of false negatives. Now every mom-and-dad shop is trying to use it. That's why I call it insanity, getting extreme practices into mainstream in our industry.

[dahart]

> Is your company considered the best, properly paying top talent, to employ the same schema?

Yes, this was true of every job I've ever had. Maybe I've been lucky.

I don't really understand why asking someone to do a small amount of programming for a programming job interview, when they claim to be an experienced programmer, is any sort of "extreme" practice.

You've expressed a lot of complaints about coding quizzes, some that many people here share, and some that I agree with.

I would urge you to spend your energy making a specific alternative proposal that companies can actually use. The OP's proposal isn't something companies can actually use for all candidates, even if they could use it for him.

I'm very interested in how to better screen and interview devs. I want to improve my process. But no process I've ever been exposed to is even close to perfect.

Make sure your proposal considers the company's perspective. The ideal process will benefit both the candidate and the company, but something that's pleasant for the candidate and unpleasant for the company will never get adopted no matter how good it sounds.

[mywittyname]

Those "mom-and-dad shops" are the ones who have the most to lose by hiring the wrong person. A sufficiently poor performing person could cripple them.

[foo101]

> Also, if you're good, then why does a low bar for entry scare or offend you?

It's not a matter of fear or offense. It's a matter of judiciously investing my time on the right opportunities.

I get about 3 to 4 calls from recruiters everyday. If I agree to go through this kind of interviewing process every day (even if the bar is low), I would be spending more than 20 hours every week just doing HackerRank tests. This is not feasible for me. Therefore just like the recruiters need a way to filter candidates out, I need a way to filter recruiters out.

Requesting a HackerRank test is just one of the many filters I use.

[dahart]

> It's a matter of judiciously investing my time on the right opportunities. I get about 3 to 4 calls from recruiters everyday.

I agree completely, I was under the assumption that this entire conversation is about what happens after you (the candidate) submit an initial job application, or respond to a recruiter about a job you're actually interested in.

I'd never do Hackerrank tests in response to recruiter spam.

[hnrodey]

There seem to be an abundance of "openings" but a shortage of offers. At least that's if you believe the whining on boards like here, Reddit, etc.

[organsnyder]

That's been my observation. Tons of openings, but many companies lean toward denials, under the assumption that firing the wrong person is more costly than not hiring the right person. It also seems that many companies are looking for ready-to-go engineers, rather than being willing (or able) to build talent in-house. The only door open to many junior devs is the internship-to-hire funnel.

This reminds me of this recent HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16337434

[kamaal]

>>Tons of openings, but many companies lean toward denials, under the assumption that firing the wrong person is more costly than not hiring the right person.

This might be their claim, but they almost always end up hiring wrong people and firing them.

Its really simple, making hiring decisions based on an interview is really like deciding to go into a long term relationship with a person based on the make up they put up during a date.

If you are choosing on these qualities alone, then the prettiest person would get selected. This says nothing about the person at all, or worse, bad people are likely to put up more make up to hide other obvious flaws.

[ThrowawayR2]

> ...assumption that firing the wrong person is more costly than not hiring the right person.

I take it you've never had to hire or fire anyone. At mid-sized and large companies, it's a cumbersome process and, unless they're complete sociopaths, firing is also unpleasant for the firing manager and the team. It also means taking on the work and cost of doing a new candidate search and another new hire ramp-up.

If easy-hire/easy-fire worked, everybody would be doing it.

[organsnyder]

Oh, the assumption is definitely warranted in many/most situations. Though there are often alternatives (such as contract-to-hire) to mitigate the risks.

[NutriSugar]

Regardless of how the job market is currently, I see it as having a set amount of 'difficulty capital' that can be spent. The fewer openings, the less of this resource you have, but otherwise everything works the same.

Given there is a limited supply, regardless of size, one should try to spend it optimally. That means being difficult when it comes to pay and benefits, and spending some of this capital when trying to determine the work/life balance. Using it to be insulting or patronizing is effectively wasting it with no return.